The Last Eligible Billionaire(80)

Tonight is so similar it hurts, but so different at the same time that I couldn’t imagine being anywhere else.

We’re not in a hotel. We’re at the sea lion pool at Central Park Zoo, with the garden area roped off and guarded by security. Twinkling fairy lights have been added to the trees and bushes at the edges of the walk. The guests at this gala, which benefits an endangered animal foundation, are in attire so fancy that I feel like I’m walking the red carpet at a movie premiere.

Instead of mini quiches and shrimp cocktail, the black-tie servers are carrying trays of fresh-made sushi, but not just any sushi.

Each piece is a piece of art.

There’s also foie gras and caviar and oysters, all in bite-size tarts and puffs and pieces assembled so fancily that I don’t think I could eat it without feeling guilty at destroying the beauty of them. And there’s a glass something that Hayes tells me is a verrine, though I have no idea if the glass or what’s in it is the verrine.

Free-flowing Dom Perignon instead of Costco wine marked up at the cash bar.

A promise of individual chocolate fountains for dessert.

Individual chocolate fountains.

Let’s be real.

That’s what I’m most impressed with.

And dessert is even more fascinating because tonight, Hayes himself is basically the human equivalent of a chocolate fountain.

He’s surrounded by people who seem eager to dip their fingers in him and lick him and use him to finish off their main course of eating the rest of the world alive.

And it’s mostly women.

And that makes me sad.

Not a single one of them knows him. And I’d bet a lot of them wouldn’t even like him. He’s not easy. He’s not agreeable. He doesn’t let people in.

And he wouldn’t like them either.

They all deserve better.

And I might not deserve it, but I want to explore the rest of the park instead of standing next to him, faking elegant, sophisticated small talk when I really want to gush about someone’s earrings or someone else’s hair.

His tight grip on my hand is the only thing keeping me from, well, being totally me.

And also sneaking off to explore the rest of the zoo.

Every time I try to interject something into a conversation, I’m steamrolled by someone else speaking not louder, but somehow more commandingly. I laugh too loud. I get funny looks. I hear the whispers.

He’ll get tired of her soon. You know how Hayes is. Thinks he’s making a point when he’s really just making a scene. Don’t worry. His mom won’t let him actually marry a middle-class suburbanite nobody from—where was it? Does it matter? We know how this ends.

Thank god for the individual chocolate fountains coming.

This is like being back at a party with Chad, but worse.

There, I had a few friends I could sneak away with who also didn’t fit. Even when Chad was sending me the not so loud, Begonia looks, I knew I could find a corner and a shrimp cocktail and a sympathetic ear.

Here, it’s just me and Hayes against the Genteel Army. Keisha’s not here. Uncle Antonio’s not here. All those sweet people on Oysterberry Bay Island who would’ve had the time of their lives playing their violins for this event tonight aren’t here.

I mean, naturally on that last one, but a girl can dream, right?

The point is—no wonder Hayes hates these things.

I’m smiling through it, laughing as loudly as I want without any dirty looks coming from Hayes himself over it—three points to him—complimenting people on their dresses and jewelry and hairstyles anytime I get an opening—seriously, there’s a lot to compliment, but I’m working overtime to find those openings—and sometimes just enjoying watching the sea lions having their late-night swims, when Hayes goes stiff as my former mother-in-law in the presence of a fart joke.

“Hayes Rutherford. Living up to your potential, I see.”

I don’t know who’s talking, but I dislike him on first syllable, and when we both turn to the sound of the voice, the sneer on this man’s face tells me everything I need to know.

True evil does exist in the world, and I will fight to my death to defend Hayes’s honor.

He squeezes my waist in warning and leaps in to speak before I can, which is impressive. “Sturgis. Mrs. Sturgis.”

Oh, fuck.

It’s his nemesis and former fiancée. Would this be like Hayes meeting Chad?

Am I supposed to punch one of them?

I’m pretty sure Hayes would punch Chad. I’ve seen that Neanderthal glower a time or two when I’ve said Chad’s name.

But I’m hardly the punching type.

“I see they’re letting anyone into these things these days,” Sturgis says. I know I could call him Brock, but I don’t want to. I like calling him Sturgis. It makes him sound like he’s related to a fish.

Hayes goes impossibly stiffer, and I realize it doesn’t matter how much formal training he has in social situations or how much time it’s been or how immature I’m being in my head.

He doesn’t want to be here and is struggling to not make a scene to get away.

“Hi!” I stick a hand out to the platinum blond woman and smile brightly at the couple. I might not have training, but I’m pretty sure I can do this. “I’m Begonia. Lovely to meet you. I mean, as lovely as it can be, given who you are. Your hair is gorgeous. That must’ve taken forever.”